ST. LOUIS, March 16, 2016—The Saint Louis Art Museum recently installed Théodore Rousseau’s Pheasantry in the Forest of Compiègne, a significant work from the early career of the leading landscape painter of the Barbizon School.

This painting, which offers a view of a forest illuminated by moonlight, is a significant work from Théodore Rousseau’s early career, painted when Rousseau was only 21. Alfred Sensier, the artist’s friend and biographer, considered it among “the most dazzling examples of Rousseau’s grand manner.”

Simon Kelly, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art, said the acquisition significantly improves the museum’s holdings of Barbizon School paintings.

“This is a very rare example of a moonlight scene in Rousseau’s output, and its gestural brushwork and abstract composition highlight the artist’s importance as an antecedent of the Impressionists,” said Kelly, a Barbizon expert who wrote his doctoral thesis on Rousseau.